A question that many are asking right now is, “How are certain developers and publishers doing right now?” That is a good question, not just on the game level but on the behind-the-scenes level. After all, we all know that in any business, you want to convey a certain level of strength, ability, and financial stability. However, in the last few years, that’s something that very few companies in the industry have been able to truly do, and that includes Microsoft with its Xbox brand. The company hasn’t been in the best of seasons, no matter how they try and put a spin on it.
Case in point, Microsoft did a financial report where they tried to outline some of its successes, and even tried to say how many franchises they had that were billion-makers, which isn’t as telling as you might think. Tucked within that report, though, was a statement by Microsoft’s Satya Nadella which noted how the company is fine with porting titles to PlayStation and Nintendo platforms.
As you can see in both statements, Microsoft doesn’t seem to mind dropping exclusivity on some titles so that they can “get more engagement.” That seems to contradict a rumor that was going on about Xbox stopping certain multiplatform plans because of backlash to certain titles going from exclusive to multiplatform in record time. We’re looking at you, Dr. Jones.
The sad irony of this reveal is that this isn’t surprising in the slightest. A chart detailing the global hardware sales for the current line of consoles recently dropped, and it revealed that the PS5 had sold over a million units worldwide, the Switch had nearly 800K, and that the Series X/S combined had barely sold about 300K. That’s not good for the Microsoft system, and it highlights the continued problem of reaching gamers and convincing them to give the “powerful hardware platform” a chance.
It also should be noted that the Switch is over 7 years old, but continues to outsell them by a factor of 2:1, while the PS5 was released around the same time as the X/S, was stated to be “inferior” to the Microsoft platform, yet outsells them by a factor of 3:1.
Not to mention, while the company tries to brag about its game, there are only a few that gamers are actually looking forward to, and many of them are likely to go multiplatform before too long simply because the fanbase of the current system isn’t enough to sustain meaningful sales.
